The Birth, Death, and Resurrection of an American Icon

March 2011

March 23, 2011

It's Official! Country School: One Room - One Nation is an Official Selection at the Cedar Rapids Independent Film Festival and will screen at the Collin Roads Theatres, 1462 Twixt Town Road in Marion, IA on Friday, April 1, 2011 at 9:00 p.m. and Saturday, April 2 at 11:15 a.m. Open to the public. Ticket information is available at www.crifm.org.

The Ottumwa Area Arts Council is sponsoring a special screening of "Country School" at the beautiful Bridge View Center, 102 Church Street, Ottumwa, Iowa on Sunday, April 3, 2pm-4pm. Free to the public! Q&A with the filmmakers and preservationist Bill Sherman will follow the film. After the presentation attendees are invited to tour the Dahlonega Schoolhouse.

A standing-room only Nighswander Theater in Davenport featured Just 4 Fun Old Time Music, the filmCountry School: One Room - One Nation and Q&A with film participants.

The critically-acclaimed Country School: One Room - One Nation enjoyed sell-out crowds at the Orpheum Theater Center in Marshalltown, Iowa and at the Nighswander Theater in Davenport, Iowa.

"Country School emerges as a definitive portrait of education in a one-room environment, a work that's every bit as informative, engaging and impassioned as those telling its tales." Mike Schulz, River Cities Reader film reviewer.

Quad City Times film critic Linda Cook gave the film 4-out-of-4 stars and wrote: "Another documentary gem...vivid and fascinating."

"We rely on the media and good word-of-mouth to promote awareness of our independent documentary films," said producer Tammy Rundle. "And the word on Country School is definitely getting out!"

Marshalltown's Orpheum Theater screened the movie on March 1 to a packed house and brought in extra chairs to accomodate more patrons. A reception was held at the town's Taylor #4 Schoolhouse prior to the screening in honor of film participant and former country school student 99-year-old Gilbert Ingraham. Ingraham joined filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle, preservationists Bill Sherman of Des Moines and Mike Riemenschneider of State Center, and Taylor #4 docent and teacher Julie Jontz Lang for Q&A following the film presentation.

When the Quad Cities March 6 screening event at the Nighswander's 375-seat theater filled to capacity, nearly 25 additional viewers bought tickets to sit in folding chairs or stand and watch the film from the back. Just 4 Fun Old Time Music warmed up the crowd by playing selections featured in the film. The program included Q&A with the Rundles and film participants Melinda Carriker (of Living History Farms in Des Moines) and preservationist Caroline Bredekamp from North Bend Community Center (one-room school) in Spragueville.

March 05, 2011

Kelly and Tammy Rundle in front of one of the one-room schoolsfeatured in their documentary.

Saturday, March 5, 2011

Q-C filmmakers produce another gem in ‘School’

Linda Cook Movie Review

FOUR STARS (out of four)

Let me share with you one of the Quad-City area’s greatest secrets: Two of the best filmmakers in the United States are right here in our own backyard.

Spouses Tammy and Kelly Rundle of Fourth Wall Films in Moline have created yet another documentary gem. These two superb filmmakers write, direct and shoot—they do it all. And they do it with a love for the Midwest, depicting obscure and rare pieces of history with photos and video while interviewing historians and those who remember, to develop a “You are there” tone.

Their follow-up to “Villisca: Living with a Mystery” and “Lost Nation: The Ioway” is “Country School: One Room – One Nation.”

Some of you are too young to remember such schools first-hand. But I’ll bet someone in your family can tell you tales handed down by a grandparent about the “one-room schoolhouse” experience. My dad loved to talk about the one-room school he attended in Nebraska, and he really did walk through terrible storms and knee-high snowdrifts to get there. Not surprisingly, both of the Rundles’ fathers attended one-room schools.

“Country School” weaves together the narratives of historians and those who taught or were students at one-room schoolhouses, along with video segments and photos, including many of restored schoolhouses. In Iowa, 3,000 of these buildings remain, with 200 of them restored. Iowa, in fact, had almost 13,000 one-room schools at one time, more than any other state.

The schools were phased out in the 1950s and 1960s, but before that they were full of farm children and children of immigrant families. In the German immigrant schools, teachers often spoke both English and German so the children of newly arrived families could learn the language of their new country.

The Rundles took two years to complete this movie, which portrays existing Midwest schools in a variety of conditions, from dilapidated to now-restored. Historians share their expertise along with those who attended and taught at the schools. The oral history is vivid and fascinating. It’s intriguing to hear real-life stories of a school system that is vastly different from the one we know now and of teachers who were expected to teach every age, every ability and every subject while they kept the stove going in the winter and maintained order all year long.

The Rundles filmed throughout the seasons, so the audience gets a flavor of what it must have been like to walk to school through clover fields as well as snow. The settings are beautiful, and re-enactments make the schools come alive again as classrooms.

Incidentally, the movie was funded in part by Humanities Iowa, the Kansas Humanities Council, the Wisconsin Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area.

Please see this wonderful film, then visit with the Rundles and tell them how much you appreciate their fine work.

What: "Country School: One Room - One Nation"

When: 2 p.m. Sunday, March 6. Includes music by the Just 4 Fun Old Time Music Band beginning at 1:30 p.m., a lobby display of one-room artifacts and a discussion with filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle of Moline after the movie.

March 02, 2011

Just 4 Fun Old Time Music Band will perform infectious, toe-tapping selections from the documentary Country School: One Room - One Nation on Sunday, March 6 at the Nighswander Theater in Davenport.

Country School: One Room – One Nation will be showcased in a special screening event at the historic Mary Fluhrer Nighswander Theatre in Davenport, on Sunday, March 6, 2011. The program will begin at 1:30pm with preshow entertainment by Just 4 Fun Old Time Music Band performing selections featured in the documentary. The film presentation will begin at 2:00 p.m. with Q&A with filmmakers Kelly and Tammy Rundle and several film participants following the documentary. Tickets are $5/per person and can be purchased at the door the day of the show, or in advance at CountrySchoolMovie.com for $6.

Over 80 hours of interviews, vistas, and historic sites shot in all four seasons in Iowa and four other states have been distilled down to a feature-length documentary that tells the dramatic true story of the life, death, and rebirth of one-room schools in the Upper Midwest. Several historic sites in Scott County are featured in the film.

Production on the film began and ended in Iowa. The Rundles filmed at several one-room schools in Scott County, including Forest Grove near Bettendorf, Pleasant Hill Schoolhouse near LeClaire, Davenport’s District No. 9 Schoolhouse at the Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds and Walnut Grove Pioneer Village’s one-room school.

Country School: One Room – One Nation premiered at the State Historical Building in Des Moines in November 2010. More theatrical bookings, film festivals, a national DVD release, and Midwestern PBS broadcasts are planned for Country School in 2012.

The filmmakers previously produced the award-winning documentaries Lost Nation: The Ioway and Villisca: Living with a Mystery. They are currently in production on the documentaries Movie Star: The Secret Lives of Jean Seberg with Emmy-nominated producer Garry McGee and sequels Lost Nation: The Ioway 2 & 3.

They are also planning to go into production in the Quad-Cities area on the docudrama Sons & Daughters of Thunder in fall 2011. The film tells the true story of the awakening of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, during the first public debates regarding the abolition of slavery in America.

The DVD will be released in mid-March. In addition to the 75-minute documentary film, the full-featured DVD will contain additional and deleted scenes, featurettes, and a filmmaker commentary track.

Country School: One Room – One Nation was funded in part by Humanities Iowa, the Kansas Humanities Council, the Wisconsin Humanities Council, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and Silos and Smokestacks National Heritage Area.